California Proposition 6, informally known as the Briggs Initiative, was a ballot initiative put to a referendum on the California state ballot in the November 7, 1978 election. It was sponsored by John Briggs, a conservative state legislator from Orange County. The failed initiative sought to ban gays and lesbians from working in California's public schools.
Openly gay San Francisco politician Harvey Milk and Sally Miller Gearhart, as well as many other gay and lesbian activists of the time were instrumental in fighting the measure. Opposition to the proposition from a variety of public figures such as then former California Governor Ronald Reagan to President Jimmy Carter helped to swing public opinion against it.
Background
Singer and Florida Citrus Commission spokesperson Anita Bryant received national news coverage for her successful efforts to repeal a Dade County, Florida, ordinance preventing discrimination based on sexual orientation. This success sparked additional efforts to repeal legislation that added sexual orientation or preference as a protected group to anti-discrimination statutes and codes. In a step beyond repeal of anti-discrimination measures, Oklahoma and Arkansas banned gays and lesbians from teaching in public schools. The idea for the Briggs Initiative was formed during the success of the repeal of the Dade County anti-discrimination language.
The measure was the first attempt to restrict gay and lesbian rights through a statewide ballot measure.
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The initiative provided that a public school teacher, teacher's aide, administrator, or counselor could be fired if the employee was found to have engaged in either (1) "public homosexual activity," which the initiative defined as an act of homosexual sex which was "not discreet and not practiced in private, whether or not such act, at the time of its commission, constituted a crime," or (2) "public homosexual conduct," which the initiative defined as "the advocating, soliciting, imposing, encouraging or promoting of private or public homosexual activity directed at, or likely to come to the attention of, schoolchildren and/or other employees."
The employee would be terminated if the school board, after a hearing, determined by a preponderance of the evidence that the employee had engaged in "public homosexual activity" or "public homosexual conduct" and "that said activity or conduct render[ed] the employee unfit for service." The factors that the board would consider in the determination of "unfitness for service" would "include, but not be limited to: (1) the likelihood that the activity or conduct may adversely affect students or other employees; (2) the proximity or remoteness in time or location of the conduct to the employee's responsibilities; (3) the extenuating or aggravating circumstances which, in the judgment of the board, must be examined in weighing the evidence; and (4) whether the conduct included acts, words or deeds, of a continuing or comprehensive nature which would tend to encourage, promote or dispose schoolchildren toward private or public homosexual activity or private or public homosexual conduct."
The initiative further provided that a person could not be hired as a public school teacher, teacher's aide, administrator, or counselor if the person had "engaged in public homosexual activity or public homosexual conduct should the board determine that said activity or conduct render[ed] the person unfit for service."
Campaign
A coalition of activists including Sally Gearhart, Gwenn Craig, Bill Kraus, openly gay San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, teacher (later president of San Francisco Board of Supervisors) Tom Ammiano, and Hank Wilson mobilized under the slogan "Come out! Come out! Wherever you are!" to defeat the initiative. In what became the No On 6 campaign, gay men and lesbians went door to door in their cities and towns across the state to talk about the harm the initiative would cause.
Gay men and lesbians came out to their families and their neighbors and their co-workers, spoke in their churches and community centers, sent letters to their local editors, and otherwise revealed to the general population that gay people really were "everywhere" and included people they already knew and cared about. In the beginning of September, the ballot measure was ahead in public-opinion polls, with about 61% of voters supporting it while 31% opposed it. The movement against it initially succeeded little in shifting public opinion, even though major organizations and ecclesiastical groups opposed it. By the end of the month, however, the balance of the polls shifted to 45% in favor of the initiative, 43% opposed, and 12% undecided.